Thursday, May 14, 2009

Die. Sit. Stay. Good Boy.

Those of you who read financial news may have heard of the so-called "golden coffin" in the corporate sector. This is when executive compensation keeps coming in after the executive's death and is the best way they've thought of to get around the age-old adage of not being able to take it with you.

Alistair Barr had written an infuriating article for Yahoo! Financial that has got to be read to be believed. The golden coffin basically is this:

We'll continue to pay your bloated salary even after you're six feet underground. This is not to be mistaken for a legitimate pay out on a life insurance policy.

Seven figure life insurance policies help guarantee that our nation's peerless executive talent stays on the job, even if the bulk of their compensation gets sent to their estate after they're dead. This is actually one of the most acceptable forms of the golden coffin. The pensions, severance payments, incentive compensation and even the executive's salary still keeps flowing in to his heirs even after he's dead and the size of the payout depends upon the time of death.

For instance, if Abercrombie and Fitch's CEO Michael Jefferies had died in February last year, his estate would've received $17 million. Think that's egregious? Jefferies got rooked. Last year, the Consumerist released some eye-popping figures, among them these:

Brian Roberts of Comcast will receive $298.1 million if he dies in office; Robert Iger of Disney will receive $62.4 million; Ivan Seidenberg of Verizon will receive $43.4 million.

I look forward to the day when rich bastards can't enjoy the privilege of driving out in their Maybachs, or Bentleys, or even their big Mercedes, without people heaving half-bricks at them. The time is coming, as more Americans get ground down into degradation, when blind red rage is going to erupt. There will be blood. Let's hope some of it is shed by the rich fuckers.